


gasps

by redevenait



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: Family, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redevenait/pseuds/redevenait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'i am filled with so much contentment' - moments in the life of todd, ben and cillian (a family)</p>
            </blockquote>





	gasps

**Author's Note:**

> the title is because these are brief moments in their lives, 'gasps' of time.

ben 

we have a quiet kind of love, not the loud, overbearing, desperate kind that you hear in the Noise of all these men for their poor dead wives. was it quiet when it began? i don’t think so. i think it was so Noisy, then. when the world was new and we were struggling with so much knowledge of each other.

it was hard for me, it was awful. but it was worse for you, i think. you’re stony, stoic, strong on the outside and you couldn’t adapt your inside to that fast enough. i remember how the word **_naked_** buzzed about you all the time.

you fell in love with me unintentionally and you tried to hide it, but how could you hide it when your mind was laid open? you tried so hard to bury it with other thoughts and pictures but i remember how it all spilled out of you just when we were working on the field, _**ben ben ben ben ben**_ and surrounded by feelings and images of my face in ways i’d never seen it before, ghosted over with want.

you could have run. you could have made excuses. instead you took me and kissed me, hard, all teeth and chapped skin.

* * *

 

cillian

you were made to be a father. todd fits into your arms like he never knew another’s – you surround him with protectiveness and love and **_early one mo-o-rning_** , so dependable. you are solid earth to todd, the ground beneath his little feet, the earth for his to sink his roots into.

i am water. todd can’t find a reliable purchase with me, can’t stay afloat. i am uncertain with him, although i wish i wasn’t. i can’t find the right balance. if you try to solidify water, all you get is ice. i am already cold enough.

todd seemed so small with his mother, tiny in her arms. when i hold him he feels larger, overpoweringly so. it’s strange. is this what parenthood is? i am constantly afraid of this tiny human, and yet every time i hear his little buzz of baby-Noise i swell with so much love that it makes you smile and kiss me softly.

and though i know it’s never ever safe, i feel so at home with you and him and us. 

* * *

 

ben 

you’re cooking something in our kitchen and i smile at the sight of you, still heavy with sleep and humming tunelessly to yourself. for a few moments i just watch, waiting for you to sense my Noise.

**_ben_** i hear, clear as day, and the feeling cloaked in it is so warm that i step forward and wrap my arms around your shoulders, burying my face in your neck. i’m stopping you from cooking now but the warmth is colouring all of your noise and you don’t care. you feel me feeling this and twist in my embrace, and now we are breathing the same air. you smile and a sort of redness comes over your Noise that is different from your usual red, a redness that i know well-

a single wail permeates the air and we both jump. **_todd_** , your Noise says but underneath that my name is repeated again and again, throbbing. ‘i’ll go,’ i tell you and you don’t even begin to protest, which should annoy me but for some reason is only endearing. ‘you keep cooking… this.’ i’m not sure what you’re making. you’ve never been a fantastic cook. 

* * *

 

cillian

it’s been a long day. it’s lambing season and we’ve had a couple of difficult ewes this year. one died today and though i wish we’d had more success with the first lambing season todd’s big enough to help with, at least we can teach him how to butcher.

we’re all lying in an exhausted haze in a field with a few stinking sleeping sheep. todd’s dozing but you and i are awake, staring at the stars. i turn my head to find you not looking at the sky but smiling drowsily at me from the other side of todd. reflexively, i smile back, and you reach over todd for my hand, resting them, now entwined, on todd’s belly. his eyes flutter open and he blinks at us and then our hands, then rolls his eyes and goes back to sleep.

you shudder with silent laughter and that makes me laugh, and i am filled with so much contentment that i make the stupidest wish of all. to let this moment last forever. 

* * *

 

ben

I WISH I COULD TAKE AWAY YOUR FEAR. 

* * *

 

cillian 

i’m yelling at todd, and he’s yelling back. it’s harder and harder to get along as he gets older and older, and i grow more and more afraid. he wants things that we can’t give him, and for some reason it drives me mad. i feel explosive, my reactions disproportionate, his similarly so.

i think we’re more alike than he would wish.

eventually he makes his ‘awwghgh’ noise which tells me he’s giving up on this argument, and i take that to mean i’ve won. he storms out, and i am left alone in the kitchen.

you come in a little later, and wrap your arms around me, allowing me to lay my head on your solid shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second part of my secret santa present for to-hear-nothing on tumblr. the first part is the fanmix that goes with this, 'inbetween' (http://davybloodyprentiss.tumblr.com/post/38651139550/). moved here from fanfiction.net (where i am also ironingman). 
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
